Going One Better!

There's always a temptation to build on a successful project.  You want to achieve greater success; squeeze something else from a basic idea that went well ... build your own example, I'm sure you'll be able to agree with this maxim.

A few months ago I wrote about two cousins; when I attempted to eliminate one of them, I found that the data I'd collected applied to him and I had to find evidence to eliminate the other.  This week I've attacked a similar challenge.

I've mentioned before my latest project, an attempt to provide mini-biographies of each of eighteen siblings and their respective families.  A few weeks ago I decided I'd got as far as I could with research and that it was time to begin the write-up.  I suppose it's inevitable that, over and over, I got to a certain point where some detail that seemed essential to the story was missing, and a quick flip back into research mode was essential.

So it was, this week, that I realised that I hadn't a note of the death of the husband of one of these siblings.  Since he was born in the 1870s, I couldn't even hint that, 'at the time of writing, he's probably still alive'.  It transpired that I had found a death, but hadn't recorded it because there was nothing to link this particular man, who died in 1964, with his putative wife.  It was too early for his date of birth to be recorded in the death register, and it was in a part of the country that had no links with the family.

I checked back at the births, and found not one but three births of that name in the same county in the same year.  Well, if I'm honest, it was one and two halves, rather than three.  I was looking for William, and what I found was William, John William, and Willie.  I compared these to the list of deaths who were born in the target year, 1879, or two years either side. It's a fairly rare surname, so there were only twelve of them - I realised that all three were represented.  The twelve comprised two straight Williams (both in un-associated parts of the country, coupled with their birth years being either side of 1879); two William E's, one of which was the one I'd noted: the additional initial was another reason to be doubtful of him; a William H and two William Henrys; the afore-mentioned Willie and four 'also-rans', Charles, George, John and Robert, all of whom had a second initial: W.

The only clue I had to work with was the date of birth as recorded in the 1939 Register: 30th April 1879.  Past experience has led me to assume that if this is incorrect, it's usually the year that is wrong, not the 'birthday'; thus I felt confident in eliminating Willie from the birth trio, because his birth was registered in the September quarter.  April, I decided, was a bit too early to 'drift' into the following quarter.

I was left, then, with John William and William, both born in the June quarter.  Of those deaths, John W was the only one of the twelve who had died 'in-county' and of the two William E's, the one I'd chosen was born 1879, the other was both further away and born in 1881.  I decided that the only way to resolve this was to work forward from their births.  They were fairly easy to find in their first two censuses and, in each case, I found registration entries for their parents' marriage to confirm I'd got the right family by checking with their mother's maiden name in the GRO birth index.  My uncertainty was justified when I realised that apart from 1881, John William had been known as William.

By 1911, both had married; one had a son, the other a daughter.  The William I sought married the subject of my project in 1934, so my next search was for the death of one of those wives.  Fortunately they had different names.  One was Ellen Mary, the other Elizabeth.  There were many deaths for Elizabeth between 1911 and 1934, but the ages were all wrong; there was only one Ellen, in 1916, and her age matched the age of William's wife in 1911.  And as a final bit of circumstantial evidence, when they were married in 1906, William had gratuitously added a second name Earnest to match Ellen's second name.  Though not used in 1939, it matched the death entry in 1964.

I felt pleased that I'd decided not to take my initial find at face value, but equally smug that the one I'd picked was the right one!